Family Tree DNA Confirms Two NFL Players are Half-Siblings

Family Tree DNA, the first and larget DNA testing company for genelaogy has just announced that their Family Finder provided "conclusive proof that two NFL players are half-siblings."

The press release continues: 

"Until a few months ago, Xavier Omon, from the San Francisco 49ers and Ogemdi Nwagbuo from the San Diego Chargers did not have a clue that they were related.  Early August, at the request of ESPN, Family Tree DNA performed the Family Finder test on both, and the result was unequivocal:  definaely half-siblings.  More of the story can be found at the ESPN website under the "Brthoer's Tale" story.

"The Family Finder test allows connecting with family members across all ancestral lines.  While the Y-DNA atches men with a specific paternal line and the mtDNA finds potential relatives only along the maternal line, Family Finder can look for close relationships along all ancestral lines.  Anyone, regardless of their gender, may confidently match to male and female cousins from any of their family lines in the past five generations. The science is based on linked blocks of DNA across the 22 autosomal chromosomes that are matched between two people.  Based on this concept, Family Tree DNA bioinformatics team has worked extensively to develop the calculations that would yield the closeness of the relationship.

The possiblities to find matches abound:  grandparents, aunts, and uncles; half-siblings; first, second, third and fourth cousins; and, more tenetatively, fifths cousins."

Order your test from Family Tree DNA, today!

Family Finder Success Story For Pitts DNA Project

For the next few posts, I will include various success stories that have been shared with me by the administrators of a DNA project. They varying in nature and will allow the reader to see how DNA testing can help with genealogy.

Posting success stories can lead others interested in the same surname to your project. If you have other stories you would like posted, please email me at: aulicino@hevanet.com

Family Finder is an autosomal test taken through Family Tree DNA. This test allows both males and females to find matches with each other back four generations, at least. Read my previous posts on this test for more detail.


Family Finder Success Story for Group 1 on the Pitts DNA Project


We had long suspected that Mary Lenora Pitts was a daughter of Pitman Pitts and Mary C. Andrews. This was, in part, due to the 1860 census showing Mary and another girl (we think granddaughters) living with Mary C. Andrews Pitts. We had tried for several years to figure out a way to test this hypothesis using mtDNA by testing the descendants of Mary Lenora Pitts to a living person was a direct female line. But the other two daughters of Mary C. did not produce a viable direct female line.

The autosomal Family Finder test, however, made testing this hypothesis easy since the lines could be mixtures of males and females. We matched on chromosome 3 and my sister matched on a slightly larger segment in the same area on chromosome 3. My 3rd cousin once removed (verified by both Family Finder and Y-DNA 67 markers exact) matched the descendant of Mary Lenora on Chromosome 5. My 1st cousin once removed, however, did not match. But failure to match with autosomal DNA does not preclude a relationship. We believe that three out of four possible matches is sufficient. We are fourth cousins.


David Pitts
Pitts DNA Project co-admin

If you are a male Pitts or have the Pitts surname in your lineage, contact the Pitts DNA Project.